Fidget stood in the middle of the street, her head down. She threw her thatching needle down on the ground as hard as she could, before clenching her fists and screaming at the top of her lungs, “IT’S NOT FAIR!”
A bolt of lightning streaked across the dark and swirling clouds, and a cacophony of demonic screeches followed the crack of thunder.
“We worked too hard!” Fidget shouted, as the wind whistled down the street, whipping her hair around her, “We all worked too hard! It can’t be over! It’s not fair!”
Arvel looked back east along the road. He could see the cluster of militiamen hunkering down against each other for stability against the bracing winds, while gusts were sending demons flying, crashing into one another or into the ground.
‘I feel kinda bad for using her feelings like this,’ Arvel thought to himself, ‘but I think she’ll forgive me if I explain.’
“Go away demons!” Fidget screamed, until her voice began to crack. Stinging pellets of rain began to fall in the whipping winds, and thunder roared as she stomped her feet, shouting into the sky, “Go away and never come back!”
Her emotional display hadn’t gone without notice. It was possible that some of the demons were able to sense the power radiating off of the irate little goblin, or maybe they were just looking for any place to focus their frustrations. Several of them turned and began to fly toward Fidget, and Arvel put himself in front of them.
“The lady asked y’all to go the hells away!” he shouted, swinging his mallet at one of the demons, shattering its shoulder with a heavy blow. Though he’d been aiming for its head, his left arm wasn’t the most accurate, and already his muscles felt weak and heavy. He swung at another demon, before a third smashed into him, throwing him to the ground.
“Get away from him!” Fidget shouted, clenching her fists.
The demon shook its head to clear the haze, before it began to crawl on all fours toward Arvel, keeping its wings tucked down against its back to keep from getting carried off by the howling wind. Arvel crawled back away from it, scooting on his backside and kicking at the wet gravel as his one free hand groped at the slick ground for any kind of weapon he could find.
The thatching needle. His hand wrapped around the base of the iron tool, and he brought it to bear as the demon lept toward him. Without time to take aim, Arvel thrust upward, and the tip of the thatching needle pierced right through the demon’s chest. Letting out a yowl of surprise, the demon stumbled back on its hind legs, looking down at the chunk of iron jutting out from between its ribs. The surface of the demon’s skin began to tingle, and a faint crackle of static ran across the blunt end of the thatching needle.
“I said...” Fidget shouted, before taking a deep breath, and crying out, “GO AWAY!”
A streak of lightning blinded Arvel as it ripped from the sky, striking the end of the thatching needle. Arvel lifted his arm to shield himself from the flash, and felt warm chunks of meat hitting his arm and chest. When he looked past the shield of his forearm, he could see the smoking remains of the demon, with a chunk of melted iron jutting from what he could only imagine was once its torso, with miscellaneous parts scattered about.
“D-Damn,” Arvel muttered, staring at the melted needle. He then looked down at his hand, which had been holding it only moments before, and a chill ran up his spine. But, he only had a few moments to contemplate his near brush with another death, before he heard the sound of voices rising from further up the road.
The militia, or what remained, were shouting at the top of their lungs as the last of the demons alighted, taking off toward the east. The stinging rain still fell heavily over them, and the sky rumbled with thunder, but still they cried out in victory.
“We did it!” Arvel shouted. He looked back at Fidget, before crawling over, to wrap his arm around her tight, and said, “We did it, Fidge! It’s alright!”
Fidget was still shaking with rage.
“It’s okay,” Arvel said, pressing her against his chest and petting the back of her head with his hand, “It’s okay. They’re leaving now. Things are gonna be okay.”
“It’s not,” Fidget whimpered, “It’s dangerous... and people are gonna keep getting hurt... like Sandy... I didn’t teach them good enough...”
Arvel didn’t know ‘Sandy’ by name, but he could take a guess. Fidget had spent much of her time with these women since they’d come to accept her, and the woman who had been plucked from their hiding place and descended upon by the demons was likely someone Fidget had been chatting with every day for weeks now. Arvel hugged her tighter, clutching her shoulder in his trembling hand, and he said, “I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry. But you can’t think about failing people because they got hurt. You gotta think about all the other people who are alive and safe right now because of you.”
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Fidget pressed her face to Arvel’s chest as she sobbed. The wind was dying down, but the rain was falling harder. Arvel sighed heavily and resigned himself to just holding her as she cried. When he lifted his head, he could see the women making their way down the street from the west end. He looked back over his shoulder, and saw the men coming from the east end. Every face in the lot looked exhausted, but still, they hurried toward each other the nearer they came, until they met in the middle, crowding around Fidget and Arvel.
But no one was looking to hold heroes up on their shoulders, or heap praise on the people who trained them. That was the last thought on anyone’s mind. Every set of eyes was searching the crowd. Cries of joy rose up as family and friends found one another. Panicked calls for names that went unanswered. Tears of joy and anguish overflowed in equal measure.
“Arvel! Fidget!” Rain called out as she shoved her way through the crowd. She fell to her knees beside them, even on the rough gravel, wrapping her arms around them both. She trembled as she clung tightly to them, and sobbed, “You’re alright! You’re both alright...”
“Of course we are,” said Arvel, weakly grinning, “You thought we wouldn’t be?”
Rain looked up at him, and said, “When the storm got bad, I thought... I thought maybe something had happened to you... I can’t imagine anything in the world making Fidget more upset than seeing you get hurt.”
“You might be surprised,” Arvel said, “Fidge is developin’ a real soft spot for the folk around here. She ain’t like to tolerate demons tearin’ down all the hard work everyone’s been puttin’ in.”
Rain smiled, and gently petted Fidget’s back, letting the little goblin bawl to her heart’s content. Though the rain was pouring, it felt gentler somehow.
The next few hours were a matter of triage. No one had time to rest. Wounds needed stitching and bandaging, and buildings needed to be patched up enough to shelter folk through the night. Some of the women even took to soothing Fidget as an important task, talking to her about how successful their traps were and how many good whallops they’d gotten in on those demons. Though Fidget was far from cheerful, their stories were enough to bring the rain to a halt. By the time the clouds were clearing, the sun was already hanging low in the sky, nearing the hazy horizon.
The bodies of demons were dragged out to the mound where they’d been piling the tainted topsoil. They dug a shallow pit to pile them in, with plans to burn it the next day, weather permitting. The bodies of the fallen settlers, however, were treated with far more care. They were wrapped in scrap cloth and stored in one of the unfinished huts, until proper arrangements for their burial could be made. For such a small settlement, they were already developing an outsized graveyard, and farmers and militiamen would soon be joining the trained guards who had once stood in their defense.
Once Arvel’s shoulder had been properly cleaned, stitched, and bandaged, he noticed that Frederik was seated nearby, having received similar treatment. Though his right arm was completely immobilized, strapped to his torso with a makeshift sling, his left hand was eagerly writing in the book that laid open on his lap.
“Demons’ve got a darn fine strategy, goin’ for the shoulders,” Arvel muttered, “You can put that one in your book. ...How the hells are you still writin’ after everything you been through?”
Frederik smiled a bit and said, “I am, for a blessing, ambidextrous. I’ve always favored my left hand for writing, but I found it easier to lead with my right hand to handle a spear, rather than trying to mirror your fine instruction.”
“Ain’t what I meant,” said Arvel, “I figured you’d be takin’ a long hard nap. Not writin’ everything down in your diary.”
Though Frederik sneered at the mention of a ‘diary’, he didn’t bother to argue, instead looking down at his paper and saying, “I know that what I’m doing may not seem especially important to you, but I’ve been a student of history my whole life, and I know the pain of the missing page... To realize that a chapter of history has become lost, either because it was not properly preserved, or because the people living it could not foresee its importance at the time. I believe what we are doing here is important. I believe every life sacrificed today was one that helped have the future of one of Nathulan’s greatest cities. So I won’t allow even a single name to turn into one of history’s statistics.”
Arvel fell quiet for a moment.
“So you’re memorializin’?” he asked.
“No one is truly gone so long as they are remembered,” Frederik said quietly, “and a properly preserved book will outlast a wooden grave marker.”
Arvel reached over and clapped his hand on Frederik’s left shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze before he pushed himself up to his feet. Offering no words of comfort or praise, he simply left Frederik to his self-imposed duty.
The sun was setting behind their backs as Arvel, Rain, and Fidget walked along the gravel trail toward home. Though Rain was loath to leave her people after their hard-fought battle, Arvel finally managed to convince her that she could bring clean bandages from home to help in the morning. But more importantly, he wanted her to get a good night’s sleep.
“Fidget is tired,” whined the goblin, “Fidget is hungry...”
“I know it,” said Arvel, “Let’s just make it easy on ourselves. We still got some biscuits left over from this morning and we’ll crack open a jar of preserves. Save the work ‘n nutrition ‘n whatnot for breakfast.”
“But meaaaat,” Fidget groaned.
“Alright, and some jerky!” Arvel said with a soft chuckle.
Arvel reached down to pat Fidget’s hair, before looking up the road toward the most welcoming sight of home. But something struck him as off. His heart sank when he saw the door hanging open, crooked on its hinges. Without a word, Arvel began to jog ahead.
“What’s wrong?” Rain asked.
Arvel broke into a run, and he leapt right over the front gate without bothering to open it.
“Lunette!” he shouted as he charged up the steps and into the house; “LUNETTE!”